Duty – An Old Fashioned Word

After the poignancy of Remembrance Sunday in which we pay our respects to those servicemen and women who have died in armed conflict doing their duty on our behalf, I was reflecting on how other parts of our society could do with a similar dose of having a sense of duty.

Once it was considered the duty of British companies to ensure that future generations of its managers and workers were properly trained. Apprenticeships were commonplace and , of course, education was an essential part of that process. That was until politicians decided it was the wrong kind of education. In place of new investment famous British companies were sold to overseas rivals thus speeding up our industrial decline.

Duty is another way of addressing, indeed protecting reputation and there is an element of force and discipline about it but perhaps that’s what is missing today. If you and I are not interested in what happens in our country, society and workplace but leave it to someone else to worry about then I can tell you that nobody is giving it attention.

This morning in the DT , I read the following statement “ to one which is riddled with corruption, incompetence and failure”. I can tell you that it is not related to the BBC, our banking system, House of Commons, the Murdoch empire or Russia. The economist Roger Bootle was writing about the EU. Now, that is not a surprise but when you have to work your way through a long list of possible candidates that might easily fit that description you know something is definitely wrong. And so it is.

Could duty , again become a relevant, everyday meaningful word or is it just too late?